Tuesday's Doings

Much happening here the next few days. Tomorrow is the last day of class for the students graduating from DCAD in 2005. So there will be a big review followed by some fun, and then the goodbye and good wishes, that is until graduation in a few weeks. I'll miss my class of animation students, they are a good bunch of kids. Fly little birds...fly!


I have also been doing more gesture drawings, last time at Starbucks. I am becoming as addicted to doing this as coffee. And Starbucks coffee is OK, not great.
Here is one of the sketches I did will trying to be invisible. The guys were drawn while looking slighlty to my right without turning my head, so it warpy but cool.



Next is a page from the Turtles. The layout was done by Ric Remender and Tony Moore, whoscaned it in, printed out in blue on comic paper and mailed it to me. I am tightening a few pages up since Ric was pressed for time with the zillion projects he's doing now like Strange Girl and Sea of Red. Once I get the go, I'll ink these puppies up.



This will be a busy week also for work on the next issue of DRAW!, number 11, and the book with Bret Blevins I'm co-authoring. So I'll be doing some more gesture drawing and some regular comic book, and storyboard drawing too.


HAS 24 JUMPED THE SHARK?

My pal Scott got me into 24 a few seasons back. And like all good TV, or drama for that matter, one has to at times suspend disbelief, like faster than light warp drive and that Yoda can kick anyones ass. And they have stretched believability many times on the show, Jack kicking Heroin, Jack getting electrocuted and a having the shit kicked out of him worse than Marv in Sin city... several times...all within 24 Hours, yet he saves the day. OK, sometimes it can be good TV, but I think the show is wearing a bit thin now, this season started strong but I feel is becoming too cliche... more evil arabs, they jet about the sprawl of LA with apparent ease, nuclear meltdown traffic or not. But this season they seem to be stretching it a bit thin even for me. Sure, I have to suspend the idea that all of this can really happen in 24 hours. Any computer code can be cracked by STU in seconds. Any place can have a camera, any store, mall, subway, parkinglot...Hell, it takes me a half hour to go to the supermarket 1 mile away for a can of dog food and I see no cameras on the road... And this season I think what gets me the most is that peoples character change so fast. People are fired, quit, go home and then come back in mere hours? I think the writing has slipped especially with the last 2-3 episodes. Of course the bad guy must elude capture until the final 'hollywood death' scene, either a plunge from a great height, or getting fried on some convenient electrical outlet or circuit board. The idea that anyone being the president and facing a terrible national crisis can be so wishwashy is just so unrealistic......